


Words

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Challenge: Sentinel Thursday, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair discuss words</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thurday prompt 'reckless

Words

By Bluewolf

It had been a nice relaxing week, and now Jim and Blair were heading back to Cascade, three salmon - freshly caught that morning - in the cooler. They had already decided to give one to Simon, and the other two they would freeze for themselves - they seemed to have been eating little but salmon during the week, the fishing had been so successful; they were taking home again the cans of meat they had taken with them - and planned to stop before reaching home to buy some meat to give themselves a change.

Jim was driving at a steady fifty that would see them back in Cascade in a little over an hour. The road was quiet - and then they were overtaken by a car that appeared out of nowhere and vanished almost immediately, going well over the speed limit.

"Wow!" Blair muttered. "I thought you could be a reckless driver at times, but that... "

"He was gone so quickly I didn't get even a part number," Jim agreed. "I just hope we don't come on him a few miles down the road, wrapped around a tree. Or worse, wrapped around another car."

"I suppose he could have had a good reason for driving so fast," Blair said. He grinned a little ruefully. "I remember once... We were living in the UK at the time. This guy in the town where we were was caught by the police, speeding - he explained that although they couldn't see it from where they were at that point, from the road he had been on he could see his house, and it was on fire. So they escorted him the rest of the way. There was already a fire engine there... and they let him off with a warning."

Jim chuckled. "And you hear sometimes about a car being stopped - and it turned out that the guy was taking his wife to hospital, and with the delay the police had to deliver a baby."

"Have you ever - ?"

"No. It's not something that'll ever happen to most of us."

"Thank God." Blair was silent for a moment, then - "Funny word, reckless."

"Is it?"

"Well, what's its opposite?"

"Careful."

"Uh-huh. But shouldn't it be something like 'reckful'? The actual opposite of careful is careless. But there's no such word as 'reck' or 'reckful' nowadays. You might see it in a dictionary but it'd be classified as archaic. You'll never hear it used unless someone thinks he's being funny. 'Inept' is another one. You could say its opposite is 'good', but if I asked you for the opposite of good - " Blair paused, waiting.

"I'd say bad."

"And there's no such word as 'ept'."

"Maybe there was, centuries ago," Jim suggested, "and it just fell out of use. Like reck - archaic."

"You'd wonder why the negative form lasted when the positive form didn't," Blair commented.

"It works both ways," Jim said slowly. "Steadfast. It's positive. But its negative? False, untrustworthy, undependable. But hardly anyone would think of steadfast as the opposite of any of those."

"Sure and steadfast," Blair murmured. "But the opposite of sure is unsure, and that wouldn't fit the meaning of 'sure' in that phrase - because there it means 'dependable' or 'reliable'."

Jim grinned. "Language is a funny thing."

"And some grammatical 'rules' have so many exceptions you wonder why there's a 'rule' at all," Blair agreed.

They drove on in a comfortable silence. And they were both more than relieved when they reached Cascade without finding the reckless driver wrapped around a tree.


End file.
